Spoils of Victory Handel's 'Germanico' - heard by ROBERT ANDERSON '... always exhilarating though less often idiomatic.'

If Germanico is indeed a long-lost Handel opera, it brings the total of such works nearer still to a half-century. But there is no action in these forty-five numbers, and it may be safer to follow the title-page of the CD booklet and think of it as a 'Serenata'. An early Nero by Handel, written for Hamburg in 1705 and dealing with the son of Germanicus, did once exist, and it would have been natural enough for Handel to turn the following year towards a more salubrious subject. This may be Handel's first piece written for Italy, at the bidding of a Florentine Medici...

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

ITALY

GERMANY